From the Dead

by Mark Billingham

  Samir Karim raised his hand. Brigstocke asked what he wanted.

  ‘Just volunteering, Guv.’ Karim turned towards those sitting behind him. ‘You know, if you’re looking for people to go over there and bring him back.’

  ‘I’ll bear it in mind, Sam.’

  ‘I could do with topping up this tan.’

  There was a smattering of laughter, other voices chipping in and more hands raised.

  Brigstocke smiled, said, ‘Yeah, all right,’ and waited for the group to settle. ‘I’ve got information sheets for everyone and I’ll be briefing DI Thorne in more detail later. There’s every possibility, of course, that this is also where the missing daughter is located . . .’

  Thorne looked at the picture of Ellie Langford, one of those that Donna had shown him. She looked more than a little surly, as though smiling were physically painful.

  ‘. . . though we will obviously keep checking with all the usual agencies in case a body turns up.’

  Thorne could not help but compare the image with the dozens he had seen of Andrea Keane over the previous eight months. He could not recall a single one in which Andrea had not been smiling. Age was all the two girls had in common, he decided, and some eighteen-yearolds had less to smile about than others.

  After all, Andrea’s mother had not gone to prison for conspiring to kill her father.

  ‘We’ve also had a good result on the photos that were sent to Donna Langford,’ Brigstocke said, tapping the appropriate place on the whiteboard again. ‘The FSS have come up with some decent prints, and they’re definitely not Alan Langford’s. I don’t need to tell you that finding out who did send these photographs is hugely important.’

  Another hand was raised. One of the new boys. Brigstocke nodded.

  ‘If we’re presuming that Langford, or whatever he calls himself now, is up to his eyeballs in drugs or what have you over there, shouldn’t we be looking at some of the other characters who are doing the same thing? Maybe one of them sent the pictures.’

  A woman sitting next to him – another new face – nodded in agreement. ‘Right. It’s a clever way for one of his business rivals to try and get rid of him, isn’t it? Send the pictures, the police start looking—’

  ‘It doesn’t make sense,’ Thorne said. The woman turned to look at him. She was young, black, serious-looking. ‘First off, this “business rival” would need to know that it was Langford. And even if he did, look at the pictures.’ He waved a hand in the general direction of the whiteboard. ‘He’s smiling, holding up his glass, posing for the camera. He’s like a pig in shit. Whoever’s taking those photographs, Langford at least thinks they’re a friend.’

  The woman smiled thinly at Thorne and turned back to the front. Brigstocke thanked her and the other officer for their input and began to wrap things up. But right at the death, the woman – whom Thorne had already decided was destined for great things – had one more suggestion.

  ‘I was thinking about tax evasion,’ she said.

  Brigstocke looked at her. Waited.

  ‘I wouldn’t bother,’ Karim said. ‘It’s against the law, you know.’

  ‘Seriously. If nicking Langford for these murders is going to be as tricky as it sounds, then we might get him for something like that.’ She spoke loudly and quickly; nervous, Thorne decided, but hiding it well. ‘Whatever business he’s in now, I’m damn sure he’s not declaring his earnings.’

  The friend next to her said, ‘It’s how they got Al Capone.’

  ‘Look, I want to get Alan Langford back here and put him away for murder,’ Brigstocke said. ‘For three murders, if at all possible. Having said that, if you want to liaise with Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, that’s entirely up to you. If I have to, I’ll settle for him going down on whatever charge we can get.’

  ‘I’ll make a few calls,’ Thorne said. ‘See if he’s got any library books overdue.’

  Fifteen minutes later, Thorne was in Brigstocke’s office. He read through the information sheet detailing how the location of the Langford photographs had been determined, while Brigstocke gave a blow-by-blow account for good measure.

  ‘Every boat in Spain has to be officially registered, and each owner – the patrón de yate – has to obtain the necessary qualification to command his vessel. All this information is logged with the local Commandancia de Marina Mercante, and he feeds it back to the authorities who collect assorted taxes on pleasure craft. So—’

  ‘I can read,’ Thorne said.

  ‘All right.’

  ‘I’m impressed with the accent, though . . .’

  Each stage of the process was laid out for him in black and white. Providing the appropriate government department in Madrid with the boat’s registration number had quickly yielded the name of its owner. Interpol, liaising with the Guardia Civil, had then tracked down the man in question in a matter of hours. Señor Miguel Matellanes had been able to confirm exactly where he was on the day in question; that he always moored his eighteen-foot sailing cruiser in the small harbour at Benalmádena Costa on a Sunday afternoon. Something about the best pulpo a feira on the south coast.

  ‘I’m just showing off,’ Brigstocke said, pleased with himself. ‘Been a long time since I did a decent bit of donkey-work.’

  ‘Pulpo what?’

  Brigstocke pulled a face. ‘Some sort of octopus . . .’

  Thorne shook his head. ‘But this only tells us where Langford was that day,’ he said. ‘He might live a hundred miles from there.’

  ‘It’s somewhere to start, though.’ Brigstocke was standing behind Thorne, looking over his shoulder, staring down at the information sheet. ‘It’s all been passed on to the relevant lot at SOCA. You’ve got a meeting with them at three o’clock.’

  ‘Here or there?’

  ‘There.’

  ‘Good,’ Thorne said. ‘They provide a better class of biscuit.’

  Brigstocke pointed at the sheet. ‘Actually, they seemed to think this was a bloody good start. Better than the information you got off your mate Brand, at any rate. None of those names led anywhere.’

  ‘This truly is some of the finest police work it’s ever been my privilege to witness, Russell,’ Thorne said, waving the piece of paper. ‘Seriously, I really don’t know how you’re ever going to top it.’

  ‘Yeah, all right.’

  ‘Maybe you can pull a few coins out of your backside or something . . .’

  Brigstocke wandered over to his desk. ‘How come you’re so bloody chirpy all of a sudden? You looked like shit when you came in.’

  ‘Early start.’

  ‘Taking out your bad mood on that new girl.’

  ‘She’s good,’ Thorne said.

  ‘Glad you think so. Because, providing you haven’t scared her off already, we might get to keep her when this is all over.’

  ‘I’ll have a word,’ Thorne said. ‘Show her my charming, funny side. I think she’s a bit in love with me already, to be honest.’

  ‘You might want to calm down a bit first . . .’

  In the quarter of an hour since the briefing had ended, Thorne had necked three cups of strong coffee and he was feeling good and buzzy. Just before going in to see Brigstocke he had found two minutes to text Andy Boyle. To thank him for his hospitality, to rave once again about the stew, and, most importantly, to suggest a new acronym to try out on his boss. A specialist unit for the investigation of contract murders.

  Tactical Operations, Tasking And Logistics of Covert Organised Criminal Killings.

  Or TOTAL COCK.

  ‘Try and hold on to that good mood for a while longer, will you?’ Brigstocke said. ‘I had half an hour on the phone with our beloved chief superintendent this morning.’

  The buzz began to wear off fast. ‘I’m all ears,’ Thorne said.

  ‘Jesmond is making this a high priority now, which is why getting more resources is not a problem. He’s fired up.’

  ‘Oh, God help us.’

  ‘Wi
th certain high-profile cases having gone against us recently, he wants to make sure this one turns out the right way.’ Brigstocke ploughed on, talking over Thorne’s attempts to interrupt, using his fingers to form quotation marks. ‘He told me he wants us to “bounce back”. That “not getting a result isn’t an option” any more. Something like that.’

  ‘What happened to keeping this “low key”?’ Thorne mimicked the use of air quotes.

  ‘All gone out of the window now a prison officer’s been killed. He reckons the media’s going to be all over it . . . and he’s probably right.’

  ‘Can’t we quietly let the media know that Cook was on the take?’

  ‘Do we have proof of that yet?’

  ‘Come on, Russell . . .’

  ‘Jesmond also seems to think putting that information in the press might tip Langford off that we’re on to him.’

  Thorne didn’t know whether to laugh, cry or bang his head against the wall. So he settled for raising his voice. ‘I think the fact that Langford has had two men killed in the last week might indicate that he already knows, don’t you?’

  Brigstocke raised a hand to make it clear that he agreed, but he did not appreciate being shouted at. Thorne mumbled an apology.

  ‘What’s happening with Anna Carpenter?’ Brigstocke asked.

  ‘What do you mean, “happening”?’

  The hand was raised in warning again. ‘Since things have got a bit more . . . serious, Jesmond is even more keen that we try to keep a lid on the mistakes we made ten years ago.’

  ‘Which “mistakes”?’

  ‘We’ve been through this, Tom,’ Brigstocke said. ‘I’m just telling you that he wants us to cooperate fully with anyone who has access to that information. Donna Langford, Miss Carpenter . . .’

  ‘Still afraid they’ll go running to the papers?’

  ‘Nobody likes bad press, do they?’

  However the case turned out, Thorne had no idea what Donna Langford might do down the line, and he found it hard to believe that Anna would ever sell the story. ‘I’ve already spoken to Donna,’ he said. ‘Told her to tell Anna she doesn’t want her involved any more.’

  ‘Because . . . ?’

  ‘Because I don’t want her involved any more. This has gone way beyond spying on unfaithful husbands.’

  Brigstocke nodded. ‘No room for amateurs.’

  ‘Plenty of those around already.’

  ‘OK, well, I’m just passing on what Jesmond said. I’ll leave you to think about the best way to handle it.’

  Thorne said he would, though in truth he had been thinking of little else all day

  Back in his office, Thorne tried hard to clear his desk and caught up with Yvonne Kitson. She asked what he thought of the new girl and he told her about the evening he’d spent at Andy Boyle’s place. Just as he was thinking of heading out for his meeting at SOCA, a call from Julian Munro was put through.

  For a moment or two, Thorne thought that Munro might have remembered something; that he was calling with some vital, new piece of information.

  ‘I just wanted to see how things were going,’ Munro said. ‘See if you’d made any progress, you know?’

  Thorne raised his eyebrows at Kitson. ‘Obviously, we’ll let you know if there’s any news, sir, but you need to know we’re doing everything we can.’

  ‘OK,’ Munro said. ‘Thanks.’ Then he cleared his throat. ‘So, what would you say are the chances? I mean, do you think . . . ?’

  ‘I’m hopeful,’ Thorne said.

  He would not normally have come out with something so optimistic. You always tried to keep things upbeat with the relatives, of course, but it made sense to keep your powder dry as much as possible. Generally, it was no more advisable to say, ‘Don’t worry, she is definitely alive,’ than it would be to draw a finger across your throat and mutter darkly, ‘Brown bread, mate, no question about it.’

  I’m hopeful . . .

  And he was. It had already struck Thorne that he was not thinking as much about Ellie Langford as he might otherwise have expected. Not with an eighteen-year-old girl missing, her foster parents bereft, the birth mother distraught. In fact, he was still thinking far more about Andrea Keane, a girl he had long since given up for dead.

  But he thought he knew why.

  He had come to believe that Donna Langford was right and that her ex-husband had taken their daughter. It was the only logical explanation for her sudden disappearance, coming as it did within weeks of the first photograph arriving. And if it were the case, Langford had surely been trying to hurt Donna and not Ellie. He was a man who would do whatever was necessary to survive and prosper, who could order the execution of others and who could stand by, so Thorne was starting to think, and watch while someone burned alive. But Thorne was not convinced that he would deliberately harm his own daughter.

  He could only hope that this atypical bout of optimism was not just Anna Carpenter’s naïveté starting to rub off on him.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  The London headquarters of the Serious Organised Crime Agency was on the south side of the river, near Vauxhall Bridge, a stone’s throw from MI6, in a cream brick and glass building that looked out across the water towards Millbank. The IRA had fired missiles at the complex in 2000, and rumours persisted of a secret network of tunnels that ran beneath the Thames to Whitehall.

  Becke House was far less interesting, Thorne reckoned, but probably a whole lot safer.

  Walking from the tube station at Vauxhall, he called Gary Brand.

  ‘You remember Trevor Jesmond?’

  ‘Bloody hell, don’t tell me you’re still stuck with that wanker.’

  ‘Afraid so.’

  ‘I’m amazed he hasn’t been beaten to death, or had a truncheon stuck where the sun don’t shine.’

  ‘I’ve thought about it,’ Thorne said, before running Brand through the latest piece of Jesmond double-think, giving vent to a good deal of bottled-up aggression as he did so. Though Brigstocke was usually on Thorne’s side where such things were concerned, it felt good to cut loose with someone who had no need to be diplomatic.

  ‘I heard about the prison officer,’ Brand said.

  ‘Cook. Right . . .’

  ‘Sounds like it’s all getting seriously nasty.’

  ‘Like you said, “can of worms”.’

  ‘Snakes, more like.’

  ‘It’s starting to look that way.’

  The sky was a wash of grey, but the sun was struggling through in places and, walking north along the Albert Embankment, Thorne could see the top half of the London Eye beyond Lambeth Bridge, with the spires of Westminster just visible a mile or so away on the other side of the river. The spooks certainly had a decent view, he decided, when they weren’t busy keeping the free world safe. Or whatever.

  ‘Where are you?’ Brand asked. ‘Sounds like you’re out and about.’

  Thorne told Brand about his appointment with SOCA. Brand said that he hoped Thorne was ready to be talked down to, and asked if he had struck lucky with any of the names he had given him. Thorne told Brand that none of them had connected with Alan Langford thus far.

  ‘Sorry, mate,’ Brand said. ‘It was the best I could come up with in a hurry. You want me to keep digging?’

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ Thorne said. ‘I’m hoping these high-fliers at SOCA will have found something.’

  ‘They’ll make you kiss their arses before they give it to you, though.’

  ‘I think my DCI’s already done that for me.’

  ‘So, you around for a pint later?’ Brand asked. ‘Sounds like you might need one.’

  ‘Sorry, I’m at my girlfriend’s place tonight.’

  ‘Girlfriend?’

  ‘Don’t sound so surprised.’

  ‘Russian mail-order kind of thing, was it?’

  ‘Actually, she’s Job.’

  Brand laughed. Said, ‘Good luck with that.’

  Five minutes later, Thorne had passed thr
ough a rigorous security check and was presenting his warrant card to the bored-looking woman at a large reception desk. Behind her on the wall was a huge picture of a big cat – a jaguar, maybe, or a puma – its claws and fangs bared as it leapt across a stylised silver globe. The SOCA logo was presumably meant to show that the agency was fierce and powerful, that it had teeth, but Thorne thought it looked like something from the kids’ TV show Thundercats which he remembered from the eighties.

  ‘Take a seat,’ the receptionist said.

  The cushion of the black leather sofa settled beneath him with a soft hiss as Thorne sat back to wait in a lobby that would not have disgraced a five-star hotel. The effects of his morning coffee-fest had worn off hours ago and he was starting to feel sleepy again, and desperate for a hot shower. He made sure that the receptionist saw him looking at his watch, that she knew someone was late and that it wasn’t him. He turned to look at the pictures on the wall behind him – splashes of brown and cream in random patterns – and flicked aimlessly through one of the magazines spread out on the glass-topped coffee table.

  But he was unable to stop thinking about something Gary Brand had said. The phrase bounced around inside Thorne’s head as he sat and waited and tried to stay awake.

  Snakes, more like.

  She caught the train from Waterloo, walked from the station and stopped when she reached the water mill. She sat on one of several benches, each with a small plaque inscribed in memory of someone who had loved the river or the view of it, ate the sandwich she’d brought with her from home and watched the house.

  It was as good a place as any to spend an afternoon.

  Initially, Anna had been reluctant to let her have the address, but once Donna had pointed out that she was still the agency’s client and paying for the privilege, the girl had given her what she wanted. Then Donna had done what Thorne had asked her to do and dispensed with Anna’s services.

  That had not been the easiest of conversations.

  The house was not as old as she’d been expecting, having got it into her head that the Munros lived in some kind of listed country mansion or other. It was big, though, with a good-sized front garden and pillars on the porch. There was plenty of space around it and she imagined a large garden at the back, sweeping away in perfect stripes from a sunlit patio, with access to fields beyond or at least a view of them.